Everyone loves to win. We in the Tea Party movement are no different. We all love a victory and hate to lose. Media sources are starting to talk about a Tea Party victory. What did we win and do we really want to have the credit for winning?
Over the last few hours, since the disastrous vote in the House of Representatives, many have been calling the debt ceiling agreement, “a Tea Party victory.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. First, the bill does not cut spending. It does not stop the growth of our national debt and it opens the door for massive tax increases.
All those are problems but that is not what we should be concerned about. The media meme is starting that this is a Tea Party victory. We are especially hearing that from people who are not our friends. Why is the left so insistent on giving us credit for this bill?
It is simple. This bill is a disaster. They know it. We know it.
The game here is when this hot mess explodes at the end of the year; the left wants to be able to send a message to the American public. The message is simple: This was the Tea Party’s fault. The Tea Party won this bill and now it is their fault.
The timing of this bill is no accident.
Obama and the hard left want this mess to explode at the first of the year. If the Tea Party is blamed for the massive tax hikes and the massive cuts in defense spending and other “popular” programs, the left will be able to marginalize the Tea Party and Tea Party candidates.
Make no mistake about what will happen later this year. When this committee of twelve that is going to be assembled meets, they will either deadlock and thus trigger automatic and bloody cuts in defense and entitlements or one of the Republicans will buckle and send through a bill that slashes defense spending and raises taxes.
The left will want to blame the Tea Party for this to sway the moderates to vote for Obama and the Democrats. The GOP will want to blame the Tea Party as well so that the establishment can once again claim total control of the GOP and send the insurgent Tea Party members packing.
We cannot allow this to happen.
At TPN, I talk a lot about messaging. Messaging is not an exciting subject. In fact, messaging as a topic rates right up there with discussions of mezzanine financing. Unless you are really into that subject, it generally becomes a MEGO moment. MEGO stands for, “my eyes glaze over.”
Messaging may not be a sexy subject but it is crucially important. We cannot allow the left to establish the message that this was a Tea Party win. In politics there is an old truism. Either you define yourself or you opponent does. The corollary is never let your opponent define you.
We must get the word out and this must be repeated. This was not a Tea Party victory. This was a victory for the far left. With no cuts in spending and the debt ceiling be raised by record levels, plus the very real possibility of massive tax hikes, this is the opposite of everything the Tea Party stands for.
We must also hammer down the fact that the Democrats held the White House and both houses of Congress for two years and never had a budget. Instead, they spent the nation’s money recklessly and with abandon. This is their economic legacy, not ours.
Take a minute to get on social media to repeat this. Use Twitter, Facebook and even some old fashioned social media such as letters to the editor to get our message out.
The left is very good at messaging. This insurgent movement has been very good at counter-messaging.
We cannot stop now. |
Permalink Reply by Ed Thull, PhD on Blackburn scored 100% on American Conservative Union’s 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009 Ratings of Congress.[15][16][17] According to the 2009 annual vote studies by Congressional Quarterly, Blackburn is one of the most partisan Republican members of the House.[18] According to National Journal’s 2009 Vote Ratings, she was ranked as the 7th most conservative in the House.[19] These rankings show Blackburn coming in behind a group of men who, in a six-way tie for the most conservative, all voted the same way on every politically charged issue for the year.[19] For that reason it could be argued that Blackburn's voting record is the second most conservative in the House of Representatives.
In 2008, Congresswoman Blackburn was named one of CREW's Most Corrupt Members of Congress by government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. CREW didn't have her on the list in 2010 and in 2010 they had 16 Reps and only 10 Dems on the list and interestingly some of those included were Rubio and West!
One of the most Conservitive members of congress not a RINO by any means What's the beef?
Permalink Reply by Norma J. Sears on 
Permalink Reply by Donald Jakel on Judson--You are correct that the tea party should not be satisfied or claim victory. The first year cuts are miniscule. The commission is a bad idea, although they cannot force a tax increase without Republicans voting for it and breaking their pledges.
However, to state that the far left were the victors is incorrect, IMO. The only thing they have achieved is raising the debt ceiling high enough to get past the 2012 election. They did not get tax increases. They accepted bigger spending cuts than the zero they wanted. They have to vote on a BBA. They have been visibly labeled to a much larger national audience as the party of big government that wants to borrow, spend, tax and redistribute the earnings of the productive members of society to the non-productive sector.
We were never going to get enough votes block a debt ceiling increase because Congress had already voted for the 2011continuing resolution which contains deficit spending of $1.5 trillion. That meant they had to borrow to pay for it or be labeled the most cynical hypocrites in the history of the US of A. In the end, there were only 18-22 House members willing to impose a partial shutdown to force bigger cuts and a BBA.
We at least got some small spending cuts and we changed the narrative from tax increases and more stimulus spending to how much spending do we cut. We got the national media to make this the main story for several weeks. Most importantly, we do not have to withstand the onslaught of virtually every Democrat and every media outlet accusing the tea party of causing not only the shutdown, but being responsible for the entire bad economy from this point forward. Obama and the Democrats would have been let off the hook by shifting all the blame to us. At least with this result the tea party lives to affect the 2012 elections.
Permalink Reply by Ed Thull, PhD on Permalink Reply by Sharon Hirschfield on 
Permalink Reply by Mike Chappell on Permalink Reply by Ed Thull, PhD on Permalink Reply by Mike Chappell on No way the Tea Party can call this a win ! No more than the exercise in bending over that our wonderful speaker did in March !
I'm really ticked and will remain that way until something changes !
Many of us fell for the BS the TP spun in 2009-2010 , but it's just more of the same old corrupt politics and cowering down in tough times . Boehner is a complete waste of payroll and has nothing on his agenda that is in any way pro-active that actually does anything beyond rhetoric !
If there is a way anyone can explain cutting 2 Trillion over 10 years and raising the debt ceiling anyway, and how it is a victory, I wanna hear it !
Permalink Reply by Toni Tabb on Yeah, right.... This is a win like the CR.
This bill was not a Tea Party victory, but politics 'as usual' between consenting political class Dems and GOP, who would collectively like to blame us and make the 'hobbits' just go away.
We've only begun to fight!
Permalink Reply by Scott Rutledge on Judson, you are absolutely right! The left is DEFINITELY playing us, and positioning us!
They are talking out of both sides of their mouths - again. They're "giving us credit" on the one hand, and yet I've also been reading and scratching my head wondering why there's been such vitriolic rhetoric re: the Tea Party, how the Tea Party has "held America hostage" through this process, and now (in Politico yesterday) the radical liberals even elevating us beyond "hostage takers" and calling us "domestic terrorists", and placing the entire blame for the debt crisis by influencing 60 GOP House members to hold up the entire process and "causing this unnecessary crisis"!
Yeah, right! It's as if the Tea Party somehow created this debt crisis! Yeah, like we forced Bush & the Bush Congresses to nearly double the debt in his 8 years, getting the debt-to-GDP ratio to 67%, and THEN, we nasty Tea Partiers forced that nice President Owe-blame-a and HIS Congress to spend ALL THAT MONEY, a record $5.4 TRILLION in just 2 1/2 years!!! Because (sic) of course that's what we stand for - irresponsible deficit spending, huge debt that we want to pass on to our children, grandchildren and down to the 4th generation, AND we want to hike everyone's taxes massively to try to pay for our excesses!
Yeah, that's it! That's what we've ALWAYS stood for!
What utter hogwash!!! Judson's right, we need to ACTIVELY and VOCIFEROUSLY oppose any such nonsense, early and often - and all the way through this thing, through next year and into the election! Our messaging needs to be simple, clear and easy to understand - WE DIDN"T DO THIS, WE OPPOSED THIS. THIS IS ALL LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND RINOS PASSING THIS. Period.
Permalink Reply by Barry Gabrielson on How you deal in negotiations is that you always come out and say things to convince the other side that you gave into their demands, that they came out the winner. Is this a negotiations ploy that is used day in and day out. This is all subject bs.
One has to sit back and analyze the outcome of this negotiations. So lets see what "We won".
1. We had Republicans voting for raise the debt ceiling 2.4T, while getting small budget cuts over the next 10 year
2. We had 0 cuts in the 14.5T current debt.
3. We had not cuts to entitlements, no ideas to change SS, MediCal, waste and fraud in government, duplications,
obozo care, etc.
4. They elected a super committee for my gridlock. Progressives will ask for tax hikes and allow the Bush cuts to
expire.
5. Not one dime of spending will go toward jobs, to improve the high rate of employment.
6. We have a Congress and President who do not listen to the will of the people, who vote by party and special interests.
7. 14.5T + 2.5T -.2T = 0. An 8% increase in entitlement spendin for the next 10 years creates more problems.
8. Inflation will on the rise, dollar devalued, home prices down, foreclosures, higher employment rate, slower growth.
9. A double dip coming soon.
So tell me. This was a win for Politicians (R & D) to increase more money for bribes for votes. The looser is the American worker, the taxpayer. The winner is the person who pays no taxes, who will be given more in entitlements.
The winner is the Unions, who can get higher raises, perks and benefits. Federal and State employees are the winners. The American Taxpayer is the looser and small business. How do you feel? You have been screwed again by this out of Control Government.
© 2013 Created by Judson Phillips.
